Aspiring to change the world; one pound cake at a time

Friday Food Find: The Spiralizer!

If you have not heard of this little gadget, I am here to spread the word! The spiralizer takes a multitude of vegetables and turns them into pasta, chips, or shoe-string frittes. You can also use this tool to transform fruit into chips, salad, garnishes, ribbons, and more. The only limits are your imagination. My first attempt at using the spiralizer was a fresh zucchini and pea salad that was dressed with mint, lemon zest, red pepper flakes, and olive oil. It tasted like spring in a bowl. More…

If you have not heard of this little gadget, I am here to spread the word! The spiralizer takes a multitude of vegetables and turns them into pasta, chips, or shoe-string frittes. You can also use this tool to transform fruit into chips, salad, garnishes, ribbons, and more. The only limits are your imagination. My first attempt at using the spiralizer was a fresh zucchini and pea salad that was dressed with mint, lemon zest, red pepper flakes, and olive oil that I had to submit as an assignment in my online cookery school, It tasted like spring in a bowl.

I have been using it ever since on softer fruit and veg. But I was finding it difficult to use on harder veg. But I really wanted to use it to make sweet potato spaghetti. I decided to try par baking the sweet potato. It turns out that fiber just gets too stringy and you end up with a big sticky mess.

I realize now that if I had put some thought in to it, I would have realized this was going to happen. I also tried par boiling with even worse success. So in a last-ditch effort, I tried spiralizing the hard, raw veg followed by a short bath in some boiling water. SUCCESS! While it was difficult to turn the crank, it did work, and looked amazing.

On a sidenote, I am now in search of a spiralizer that is similar to a pasta maker that you can secure to the counter top and is made of metal. I have yet to find, so if you are some inventor-type, please make a prototype and use kickstarter to make your millions. And as a thank you, all you have to do is sell me one at wholesale for this grand idea!

It tasted really good raw, as I have found with all of the veg so far. But I now needed to test out a few batches to see how long it would need to cook to be used as a pasta in a dish I had swimming around in my head. After three attempts, I found what worked best for my. I submerged the shockingly bright tendrils in boiling water for exactly one minute before draining.

Next week, I will post the results of this along with an easy peasy dinner recipe that costs almost nothing to make, but looks and tastes amazing (and post a link here once I have it)! In the meantime, I highly suggest that you go out and get one of these! If you can not find one in your local shop, here is a handy link to one online through Amazon. And that is not all, while I was looking for a link to this gadget, I also ran across this book that got really good reviews. I have have not read it, but have added it to my wish list!